


North

by RogueBelle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, House Stark, Pre-Canon, Ratings: PG, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/RogueBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddard Stark returns home as the new Lord of Winterfell, and has to contemplate his new responsibilities, even as his younger brother makes a stunning declaration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	North

Home at last, though not as he'd ever expected. Eddard Stark gazed thoughtfully at the towering grey walls in the distance. He had gone south to the Eyrie so long ago, and since then had been all over the Seven Kingdoms -- King's Landing and Storm's End and the Trident and the mountains of Dorne, green riverlands and bustling cities and red, red deserts. And now, having seen all seen of the Kingdoms of Westeros, he had no desire to see any of them again. _'My place is here,'_ he thought, _'and as the Lord of Winterfell... the gods grant I need never ride out to war again.'_

Eddard couldn't help but think, not for the first time, that it should have been Brandon returning in this fashion, Brandon returning home as Lord, with his new Lady beside him, Brandon bringing home the knights of the north, bringing up the Tully servants who would stay with Lady Catelyn. Brandon was the one who had been raised to be the Stark of Winterfell, not Eddard. But the gods worked as they would, and if Eddard had to assume the role, then assume it he would.

At least his new wife had never offered him reproach or even any sign of dismay at the substitution. No doubt she'd nursed grief, but she had done so privately, and certainly his long absence had given her time to make her peace with her circumstances. _'We have all had to adjust.'_ Eddard still wondered if she was too southron, too soft for the harsh realities of the North, but so far, the Lady Catelyn seemed to be bearing up admirably.

She had impressed him when they left Riverrun. Catelyn, ever practical, had opted to ride rather than take a wheelhouse. The cumbersome, rattling device would have slowed progress considerably, and all in the party were anxious to reach Winterfell as soon as could be. _'The sooner we can establish this new reality, the better.'_ Beside Catelyn rode a strong, solid nursemaid, with the infant Robb bundled tightly to her chest.

 _'Maybe it will help,'_ Ned thought, _'bringing Catelyn and all her coterie north. Even if they are southron. Maybe Winterfell will seem less empty, less...'_

Eddard did not know, as yet, if the castle would seem haunted. He hoped not. The bodies of his father and brother had been returned north months since, and by now were resting beneath their effigies, direwolves at their sides, swords over their tombs. He had done all he could to put their spirits at peace. _'And now...'_

Robert had raged and bellowed when Ned took her away, had wept angry and passionate tears, but Ned had remained impervious to his pleading. Lyanna had lived and died a Stark of Winterfell, and Ned meant to give her all the honours due a lady of their house. _'No. More. More than any lady before her has had...'_ Her remains, sent ahead while Ned returned to Riverrun to fetch his wife, would have by now been put in a tomb, but there was, as yet, no effigy above it. Wives and daughters were not, by tradition, given that honour, but Ned could not quite bring himself to consign her to the dark without giving her beauty a way to live on eternally. _'And centuries from now, future Starks will look on her face, and hear her story... or at least part of it.'_

But putting the bodies to rest might not necessarily quiet the spirits, at least not within Eddard's own head. He wondered if he would, once back in Winterfell, find himself expecting to hear Brandon's exuberant shouts or Lyanna's pealing laughter. If he would try to put himself to bed in his old chambers, not the Lord's rooms, not that space that would still seem to belong to his father. And some spirits would live on, no matter how well buried the bodies were; there would be daily reminders, whatever else Ned did.

\--

The welcome at Winterfell was subdued. Eddard was privately grateful, though he did, with a sidelong look at Catelyn, feel somewhat guilty for not having some sort of fête to honour his new bride. Southron ways would require it, would require banners and musicians and feasts and dances. She had been robbed of a proper wedding; part of Ned wished he could offer her some recompense for that. But Winterfell was in no condition to celebrate; the castle remained in mourning. More of its scions had returned dead than alive.

Benjen was there to greet them at the gate, looking so much older than the gangly boy Ned had last left at Harrenhal. He was still skinny, still not-quite-grown, but there was stubble on his chin, and new muscles on his frame, and an aging sadness in his sharp blue eyes.

They embraced, and exchanged the customary pleasantries, and Ben spent a few minutes as they paced around the courtyard filling Ned in on recent developments at Winterfell: minutiae of life, which horses had foaled and which servants' daughters had married and how the accounts stood. Then, after hearing about new acquisitions for the library, Eddard asked, "The boy. Jon. How is he?"

"Well. Very well," Benjen replied. "Talking now. Only a few words, but he's coming along. Healthy, strong, active."

"Good," Eddard said, his throat feeling tight. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Do you want to see him?" Ben quietly offered.

"Not... not just yet," Ned replied, glancing over at where Catelyn had already stepped naturally into her role as Lady, directing her servants with the luggage. "She knows. I warned her, but... still. Let her have some time before she has to be reminded."

\--

Late that night, when everyone was settled, when Catelyn was asleep underneath layers of furs and woolen blankets, Ned slipped out of bed. Unable to rest, he wrapped himself in a warm robe, took a torch from the corridor, and walked the long, lonely path down to the crypt beneath the castle.

The night air whispered to him as he walked. He passed the earliest Kings of the North, their statues as decayed as the hidden corpses, and walked on through history. It was a reminder to him, of the ages and the legends which filtered down to him, of the weight of responsibility now on his shoulders. By nature contemplative, Eddard had never needed the reminding, but he took it in, anyway.

When he reached the newest tombs, however, he did not go to his father's or to Brandon's; he lodged his torch in an iron sconce and sat on the cold floor next to his sister's yet-unadorned sepulcher. He stared for a long while in silence at the flickering light, playing shadows on the stones.

"I tried," he whispered, laying his hand on the smooth grey stone. "I tried, Lyanna, I was trying to make things better. We all were. Me and Robert and Brandon. We thought we were doing right by you." His fingers clenched slightly. "Dammit, Lya, why didn't you _tell_ us? Leave a note, send a raven, anything, so that we would have known..."

He sighed, and shook his head. Shaggy brown locks fell around his face, reminding him that his appearance could probably stand some maintenance.

"I don't blame you. I can't blame you. You didn't know what this would..."

And then, for the first time, in the darkness of the crypt, Eddard allowed himself to wonder what it was Lyanna must have been imagining, or at least hoping for. Her ideal, her intentions for how it would all have turned out. A second queen, a Targaryen bride. They had never sneered at bigamy, even if they did tend to keep it within the family. But if the Martells had decided not to cause trouble, it could have worked out. A true unity of the realm, north to south, and a young prince with grey eyes...

"Is that what you wanted, Lya?" But the ambition of it didn't ring true. Lyanna had never cared for the prestige of Storm's End; Ned couldn't imagine it meaning much to her to be a queen, or to birth a prince. "So what did he offer you?"

Only the silence of the stones answered him. Ned sighed again, and gazed down the row, at statue after statue.

\--

In the morning, Benjen sought his brother out. He found Eddard pacing in the lord's chambers, alone; Lady Catelyn had already dressed and gone to see to her morning responsibilities. Eddard stood with his back to the door, looking out the window at the walls of Winterfell, and beyond, the pointed tops of thousands of evergreens. Benjen cleared his throat, and Eddard turned around. "Poole said you were looking for me."

"Yes, I've... I've just got something I'd like to speak with you about, if you have a few minutes."

"I do. Come in, close the door."

Benjen did so, not sure if he felt more or less comfortable as he eased the heavy wooden door flush with the wall. Would Eddard be more himself, separated from everyone else for whom he was now responsible? Or would he be more the lord, here in these chambers, their father's chambers?

Before Benjen could speak his mind, Eddard offered, "I went to see him this morning. The boy. Jon. He is... as you said."

"It was good of you to bring him here," Benjen said, strolling to join Eddard near the window. "It would have been easier, I suppose... you could have left him in the south, found someone there to look after him."

"He's my responsibility," Ned replied. "I didn't have much choice, really."

"No, you did," Ben insisted. "You could have made... any number of other choices. It would have been easier for you, and for Lady Catelyn, but... you were right to bring him here."

Ned looked at his younger brother, no longer a child, and realised how much he had needed to hear someone say those words. He had to be the Lord of Winterfell now, a task he was not sure he was equal to, but it bolstered him to hear someone approve of a decision he had made. "When did you get so wise, Ben?" he wondered aloud.

Benjen shrugged his slender shoulders. "I had a lot of time to think about things."

Eddard nodded. _'Poor Ben,'_ he thought. _'I didn't mean to leave you behind, but I can't make myself sorry you weren't there.'_

"I wish to go north," Benjen blurted into the suddenly-fallen silence. When Ned made no response, only a blank, though somewhat bewildered, stare, Ben continued, "I want to go to the Wall. To take the Black. To- To join the Night's Watch."

"Ben," Ned said slowly, "you know you have no need-- not that joining the Watch is not a noble and worthy aspiration, but... You are yet so young."

"I'm a man grown now," Benjen contradicted him. "You went south, you were gone so long, you don't know what—"

Ned held his hands up. "No need to grow heated, brother. But the Watch is forever, and that may be – gods willing – a very long time from seventeen, man grown or not."

Ben scuffed his boot against the floor, not wanting to meet Ned's eyes. "I need to go. I do. It's the only way I can make up for—for my part in it."

"Your part in-- Ben, what on—"

"He has the look of his mother," Benjen cut in. "The boy. He looks like his mother."

The brothers met eyes for a long silent moment, with unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. Finally, Ned ventured, in tentative voice, "Robb. Yes, he has the Tully colouring."

Benjen's jaw set stubbornly; he reminded Eddard abruptly of Brandon in that moment. "I meant Jon. You know I meant Jon. Jon, the bastard, who takes after his mother."

Ned gaped at his younger brother; of all the things he might have imagined, this was not one of them. No one yet alive was meant to know, no one except he and Howland Reed. "Ben. You know about the boy?"

Benjen neither confirmed nor denied. Instead, he turned away, to the window, and gazed out at the woods. "It might be spring for true soon," he opined in a far-away voice, sounding, indeed, much older than his seventeen years. "The hard ice is starting to thaw. A proper spring and summer would be nice, not to be teased like we were two years ago. You remember how warm it was, those few months? How bright the sun was shining? All the colors..."

His voice trailed off, and Eddard could almost see the memories play out on his face: memories of banners beneath the imposing walls of Harrenhal, fluttering in the crisp vernal breezes, memories of climbing trees whose branches were covered in new buds. Memories of the greatest tournament of the age, and of blue winter roses dropped in an unsuspecting lap.

Ben turned back towards his brother, leaning back against the window ledge. "We all have our secrets, Ned. I'll never speak yours. But I'll never speak hers, or his, or theirs, either."


End file.
